The words ‘desire’ or ‘want’ are, like ‘thought’, used in a number of different ways in ordinary language, and it is important to distinguish these if ‘desire’ is to be used as a useful technical term. A ‘desire’ or ‘want’ as I shall understand these terms (and as I also believe to be their normal sense) is a natural inclination to do some action with which an agent finds himself. We cannot (immediately) help our natural inclinations but what we can do is choose whether to yield to them, or resist them and do what we are not naturally inclined to do. When we resist our natural inclinations, we do so because we have reasons for action quite other than ones naturally described as the satisfaction of desire—e.g. we do the action because we believe that we ought to, or we believe it to be in our long-term interest. The natural inclinations of agents are to perform certain actions, seen as separate from some of their properties and consequences, or to bring about certain states of affairs, seen as separate from the process of bringing them about. An action or state of affairs is seen as having certain properties and consequences which belong to it, and other properties and consequences which are separate from it. The former we may term its central properties and consequences, the latter its peripheral properties and consequences. Whether John is rightly to be said to desire to go to a party of Alan's depends on what is seen as involved therein. The party is a party with Alan and his family, but Jane will be there. He likes Jane but he does not like Alan. We can say of him either that he does not want to go to the party, but he wants to meet Jane—and so perhaps goes; or, redescribing the same facts, we can say of him that he does want to go to the party because Jane will be there. If we say the former, we think of the party as a party with Alan (Jane being there being something separate from the party in itself—i.e. a peripheral property of the party); if we say the latter, we think of the party as a party at which Jane is present (this being a central property of the party).
When an agent desires a state of affairs—say his owning a large and sumptuous house—then he has a natural inclination to bring about such a state of affairs, when the bringing about is thought of as separate from its normal properties and consequences—e.g. the trouble and embarrassment involved in the process of acquisition.
The object of desire is normally thought of as separate from its evaluative properties, its properties of being good or bad in some respect or overall, including its moral properties, such as being obligatory to do or not to do. A man is said to desire or not to desire some state of affairs or to do some action in view of an attitude towards it which abstracts from his beliefs about its moral, or other, worth. Whatever other of its properties are thought of as central to the action of going to the party, that it is a party which it is John's duty to attend or (alternatively) his duty not to attend, is thought of as something peripheral. If John believes that he ought not to go to the party, that in no way normally affects whether he can be rightly said to desire to go to the party.
There are different ways of carving up actions, and according to what is seen as central to the action, so the agent is said to desire or not to desire to do the action. But obviously the most useful way to describe an agent's desires is to treat as separate, features of actions towards which he has very different inclinations, rather than lump them together and consider a total inclination.
Note that this central/peripheral distinction is a different distinction from the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction of Chapters 3 and 5. The latter distinction was a distinction between different ways of describing events, and so actions. An action described intrinsically was one described simply as the bringing about of a certain bodily movement with certain purposes and beliefs. An action described extrinsically was one described, at least in part, in terms of its surroundings or consequences—e.g. as the successful achievement of some goal. But an agent, considering whether to do some action, or a spectator, may think of it primarily in extrinsic terms—e.g. as the achievement of that goal; and so may regard as central to that action, in determining his attitude towards it, some extrinsic feature of it, such as its having a certain consequence. John's going to a party is an extrinsic description of an action; it is a description of his moving his body in a certain way with a certain purpose, in terms of the fulfilment of that purpose. Yet, central to
his action, as he views it, would be succeeding in being at the party, and maybe being at a party with Jane.
And what is a ‘natural inclination’? It is a readiness (of which the agent can become aware in consciousness) spontaneously to do the action when, in the agent's belief, the opportunity arises—but for any belief he may have about the peripheral consequences and properties of the action, and but for any desire to do a rival action which the agent believes cannot be done at the same time. I desire to smoke a cigarette (considered as an action separate from any consequences to my health or the health and inconvenience of others) if involuntarily I am all organized to smoke a cigarette when I have the opportunity (e.g. I am offered one) and have no desire to do something which I believe incompatible (e.g. chew gum), and when I have no beliefs about it having bad peripheral consequences. Humans (and animals) have sets of responses all ready to make spontaneously in different circumstances—they are all ready to respond in various ways to bells and lights, commands and smells, and they are aware of themselves as so prepared. But some of these readinesses to act are voluntarily formed intentions so to act, intentions which we could easily abandon at will if we saw reason for doing so. Desires, on the other hand, are readinesses which we find in ourselves and are not alterable at will. It is this passive and involuntary character of desire which I was seeking to capture by the word ‘inclination’.
We can see the difference by comparing a desire with a conditional intention otherwise similar but formed at will, and able to be abandoned at will. Suppose that I know that I shall be offered by my host a choice between playing a game of tennis and making a visit to a stately home, and that it will be a good thing to choose quickly and sound enthusiastic about one of these. I have no prior desire to do one rather than the other. Having no beliefs that one or other of these will have subsequent consequences for my life which the other will lack, or moral worth which the other lacks, I form a conditional intention (as a result of tossing a coin, perhaps) that, when offered the choice but given no further information about consequences or moral worth, I will choose to play tennis. I resolve so to respond. But I do not thereby create in myself a desire to play tennis which I did not have before, since the intention is alterable at will. By contrast, I am aware of myself as
organized spontaneously to respond in a certain way if offered a choice between rice pudding and chocolate éclair in a situation where I have no beliefs that choosing one or other of these will have subsequent consequences for my life which the other will lack or moral worth which the other lacks. I am already organized to choose the éclair.
The account so far is circular in that a ‘desire’ is defined in terms of how a man is inclined to act but for any rival ‘desire’. This circularity can however easily be removed by a regressive definition. A man has a desire to do X if he is inclined to do the action but for beliefs about its peripheral consequences and properties. He then also has a desire to do Y if he is inclined to do Y but for the stated beliefs and but for a belief that he had the opportunity to do X. He then has a desire to do Z if he is inclined to do Z but for the stated beliefs and but for beliefs that he had the opportunity to do X or Y. A man desires to do some action if such a conditional is true of him that he is inclined to do the action but for beliefs about its peripheral consequences and properties and but for beliefs about rival actions open to him. The scheme of definition then yields a natural comparative measure of strength of desire. A desire to do Y is stronger than a desire to do Z if the agent is inclined to do Y rather than Z in circumstances when he believes both to be available to him but for beliefs about their peripheral consequences and properties. Two desires are equal in strength if the agent has no inclination to do one action rather than the other in those circumstances.
Desire is, as I have so far defined it, the inclination to spontaneous action in the absence of beliefs about peripheral consequences and properties, including worth, and in the absence of rival opportunities. And if agents are to have desires, they must have inclinations to act under such narrow circumstances. But it is the fate of humans that their desires which give rise to action under such narrow circumstances, also influence action when the agent believes the action to be overall bad. The agent still finds himself ready-geared to do the action, even when he believes it immoral. But in those circumstances it is up to the agent whether to restrain or indulge the desire, as I shall bring out more fully shortly.
Enjoyment or pleasure consists in the believed satisfaction of present desire. It consists in yielding to involuntary inclination in doing what I do or allow to happen. I enjoy playing golf if I yield to natural inclination when I play golf (and believe that I am doing so);
I get pleasure out of sunbathing if I let the sun warm my body (and believe that I am doing so). If my belief about the satisfaction of my desire is not a true one, the enjoyment comes only from what I believe, not what I do or what happens to me. If I believe that my desire to win the lottery has been satisfied when it has not, I still get pleasure—but only out of my belief. However, because the beliefs of humans about when their desires are satisfied are normally correct, I shall in future—for the sake of simplicity of exposition—since nothing turns on it, understand enjoyment or pleasure just as the satisfaction of desire.
I am not claiming that my enjoyment consists in yielding to an inclination which I had before I yielded; for when I yield, I may find that that to which I yield gives no pleasure.68I mean, rather, that this enjoyment consists in yielding to
an inclination to yield which I possess while I am yielding. To enjoy eating consists in eating while I am naturally inclined to eat.
There certainly could be creatures who formed or readily changed all their intentions as to which actions they would to in all circumstances including in the absence of beliefs about their peripheral consequences and properties, without finding a prior inclination already present in themselves which was in any way difficult to alter. But they would not have desires, merely conditional intentions, and enjoyment and pleasure could not be theirs. It is because pleasure consists in the satisfaction of desire that in all known systems of morality the satisfaction of desire (of the agent or of other people close to the agent or of all people) forms a central element of the good life, indeed for many systems of morality the whole of the good life. A system of morality very different from any known system of human morality would be needed to prescribe conduct in a community of agents who lacked desire. But although it is necessary for pleasure there should sometimes be an inclination to act, but for beliefs about peripheral consequences and properties, what is not necessary is that the inclination should still be present when the agent has a belief that the action has overall bad peripheral consequences and properties, and, above all, has the belief that these are such as to make the act overall a bad one to do. It is, as we have seen, the fate of humans
68 In his book Reason and Value (Cambridge University Press, 1983) , E. J. Bond frequently makes the point that satisfaction of desire does not in itself necessarily give pleasure.
that the inclinations to act needed for enjoyment still move towards action (make the actions easier, more natural to do) when the agent believes the action overall bad. That desire so operates in humans is a contingent feature of desire. That we have such inclinations to spontaneous action in various ways under various circumstances is a fact about our conscious life which is captured by saying that we have desires. Facts about an agent's desires are facts about the inclinations towards intentional action in himself, not facts about how he has behaved in the past, or what he says that he wants, or even about what he would do if he did in fact believe that the opportunity to act had arrived and he had no evaluative beliefs which stood in his way. It is always possible that an agent's desire to eat chocolate might suddenly vanish when he ceased to believe that eating chocolate did him harm. Since an agent can know everything which everyone else knows about his behaviour, and yet can feel (in a way which others cannot) the inclinations to which he is subject, desires are mental events.
Our awareness of a desire is an awareness of an inclination which we find in ourselves, and which we suppose continues to exist while we are unaware of it or anything else. We thus think of desires as continuing mental states to which we have access from time to time. We think in this way for two reasons—first, because the process of asking ourselves what we want and providing an answer comes to us as a process by which we become aware in ourselves of a readiness to act, which does not seem created by the enquiry, but to be there ready to manifest itself in appropriate circumstances. That is, desire comes to us phenomenologically as something uncovered and not created by enquiry. Secondly, it is normally the case with the desires of which agents are aware at a given time, that they are aware of the same desire at any time over a continuing period when they have occasion to wonder whether they have the desire, or are presented with an opportunity for doing the act desired. We know that from their reports. Also, those same desires often influence any actions they may perform over the same continuing period. The continuing period is a fairly short one with respect to desires such as those for food, drink, and sleep. The period is often a much longer one with respect to desires which have causes partly of a social and cultural kind, such as the desire for success in an examination, a marriage, or a career. But in all these cases, when the agent reflects, he is aware of the
same inclination to act over a continuing period, and that inclination influences, often decisively influences, his behaviour during that period.
None of this applies generally to sensations, thoughts, and purposes. We do not think of ourselves when investigating these, as bringing to consciousness states of affairs which existed for long periods while we were unaware of them, and it would not facilitate the explanation of behaviour to suppose that these were such states—with one exception. We see certain thoughts, viz. those which are judgements, as awarenesses of an underlying state, belief; I will discuss this exception in the next chapter. Desires, however, are naturally and usefully thought of as continuing mental states to which we have access from time to time.
There remain, however, two possible ways of understanding this talk—the dispositional or the categorical. On the dispositional understanding, to say that an agent has some desire of which he is currently unaware is just to say that, if asked, he would become aware of it, or, if the opportunity arose to do the action desired, doing it would come easily to him. There is some state of the agent—and in order to reduce alternatives to manageable proportions I shall assume with most advocates of such a view that it is a brain-state, which remains the same and causes the agent's thought and action to be influenced in the same way from time to time. On this understanding, the mental nature of desire consists in the subject's privileged access, whenever he chooses, to a feelable inclination to action. But the only ‘real’ categorical state which exists while the agent is unaware of his inclination is a brain-state ready to influence thought and action. The manifestation of the desire in consciousness is intrinsically propositional; it is the manifestation of the desire it is, quite independently of its surroundings, causes and effects; a desire to bring about a state of affairs under a description, e.g., to eat this meal rather than to eat corn (even if this meal is corn). Whereas when the subject is unaware of his desire and all that exists is the brain-state, what makes it true that the subject has this desire rather than that desire is the effects to which the brain-state would give rise in appropriate circumstances; there is no continuing intrinsically propositional state.
On the categorical understanding of desire, what continues when an agent is unaware of some desire is an attitude towards a state of affairs, which is just the same as the attitude of which he is
aware when he is aware of his desire, except for the fact that he is unaware of it. To say that an agent has a desire of which he is currently unaware is to say that he has such an attitude. Desires are intrinsically propositional, even when not being manifested. I shall consider in Chapter 14 which of these understandings of desire is the correct one. Are desires causally efficacious? On the dispositional view there is nothing more to a desire than its manifestations.